Rotary distributor



Filed March 24,, 1969 M. A. WEBSTER ROTARY DISTRIBUTOR :5 Sheet-Shee t v 1 29 FIG. 2

30 //v VE/V TOR M/L LARD A. WEBSTER Attorney M r 31,1970 ;M.,A.WEB STER 3,504,141

I .ROTARY DISTRIBUTOR j .7 Filed March 24, 1969 s Sheets-Sheet 2 I IN VEN TOR MILL/1RD A. WEBSTER Attorney Marh,s1,191o MAQW'E TQ; 3,504,141.

BQTARY DISTRIBUTOR Filed Maro h 24, 1969 :5 Sheets-Sheet 5 INVE/V TOR M/LLARD A. WEBSTER A frorney United States Patent ice 3,504,141 ROTARY DISTRIBUTOR Millard A. Webster, 633 Regan St.,

Rockford, Ill. 61107 Filed Mar. 24, 1969, Ser. No. 809,599 Int. Cl. H01r 39/02 US. Cl. 20025 18 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE This distribution operates completely on the rotary principle. The rotor operating inside the housing has evenly spaced contacts on the cylindrical upper end thereof that are interconnected by an integral top ring on the top of which a first spring-pressed contact rides while a second spring-pressed contact in diametrically opposed relation rides on the periphery of the contact segments. The two contacts are carried in insulated relationship to one another on a top section of the housing that is ocillatable for spark advance and retard. The last mentioned contact is grounded through a pin extending through the housing to the lower end thereof. This much is all in the primary circuit of a spark coil. A cap on the housing encloses the oscillatable top section of the housing and carries a contact for the secondary circuit of the spark coil and engages a central terminal therebelow which, through an intermediate vertical pin in the center of the rotor and a rotary electrical connection with the terminal in the top of the rotor provides an electrical conection with a springpressed contact on one side of the rotor that engages contact segments assembled in the wall of the housing in circumferentially spaced relation. Sparkplug leads are connected with these segments by pins threaded in the housing through holes in the segments and having pointed ends that pierce the leads where they are entered in other holes provided in the housing. A counterweight on the rotor in opposed relation to the last named contact serve both to balance the rotor and by sliding contact with the inside of the housing to keep it central in the housing. A piston working in a cylinder on the outside of the cap is movable in one direction by spring means and in the opposite direction by drop in pressure in the intake manifold of an engine and operates the aforesaid oscillatable top section of the housing through a slot in the cap to advance and retard the spark.

This invention relates to a new and improved distributor for spark ignition of internal combustion engines, and, more particularly stated, is concerned with improvements on the rotary type distributor forming the subject matter of my copending application, Ser. No. 636,921, filed May 8, 1967, now Patent No. 3,435,161.

More specifically stated, the present type rotary type distributor has the following features:

(1) All of the advantages of the previous construction are retained in the present inverted design, which offers certain important advantages, as will be pointed out hereinafter;

(2) This construction permits a direct substitution by virtue of the inverted design, of the new construction for the top portion of a General Motors type of distributor, where the rotor mounting is on a raised flat support carrying the mechanical advance mechanism, and

(3) The present construction makes it practical for the first time, so far as I am aware, to incorporate a printed circuit board or wafer allowing symmetrical arrangement of the sparkplug wire leads, half on each side of the distributor in nicely evenly spaced relation.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the course of the following description, in which reference is made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

3,504,141 Patented Mar. 31, 1970 FIG. 1 is a general perspective view, partially cut away, of a rotary type distributor made in accordance With the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a vertical section through the distributor;

FIG. 3 is a horizontal section on the line 33 of FIG. 2 showing the top make and break ring member, which is all metal, and showing the contact pin for the primary connection;

FIG. 4 is another horizontal section on the line 44 of FIG. 2 showing lower segment sections of the make and break member below the continuous ring portion and also illustrating the ground contact;

FIG. 5 is another horizontal section on the line 5--5 of FIG. 2 showing the offset arrangement of the grounding rod and showing the high voltage studs that are pinconnected to the sparkplug wires;

FIG. 6 is a perspective showing the circuit board or wafer feature, and

FIG. 7 is a plan view of a distributor installation showing how the printed circuit enables symmetrical arrangement of the sparkplug wires.

The same reference numerals are applied to corresponding parts throughout the views.

Referring first to FIGS. 1 and 2, the reference numeral 10 designates the lower portion or base housing of a distributor from which the entire superstructure has been removed so that'the unit 11 of my invention can be applied, using spring clips 12 to fasten it in place in the conventional manner. In other words, after the conventional housing and rotor have been removed and the improved unit 11 has been fastened in place by clips 12, there remains only the transfer of the vacuum hose 13 from the old unit to this new one at 14. The latter is a cylinder molded integral with the cap 16 and having a piston 17 reciprocable therein normally urged outwardly by a coiled compression spring 18 but movable inwardly under atmospheric pressure when there is a drop in pressure in the intake manifold, the piston moving then only to the extent limited by screw 19, as shown in FIG. 3. The arcuate arm 20 is pivotally connected to the piston at one end and at the other end to the outer end of a radial arm 21 that extends through a slot 22 in the cap 16 for connection with the :oscillatable top member 23 of the distributor housing 25 to turn it through a small angle in response to drop in pressure in the intake manifold of the engine to which the hose 13 is connected, whereby to advance the spark. Top member 23 has a spring clip 24 engaging it to retain it on top of the housing 25, the radially enlarged lower end portion 26 of which fits in the annular recess 27 of the cap 16 as seen in FIG. 2. The cap 16 is fastened by means of two screws 28 to the housing 25. The lower end portion 29 of the housing 25 has an annular recess 30 which receives the distributor support 10 to center the housing 25 accurately with respect to the rotor 31 that has been substituted for the conventional rotor and slipped onto the upper end of the upper section 32' of distributor shaft 32 above the mechanical centrifugal spark advance mechanism 33 having the conventional spring restrained centrifugal flyweights indicated at 34. Rotor 31 is driven by shaft 32' through a key connection indicated at K.

Referring further to FIGS. 1 and 2, P and S in FIG. 1 designate the spark coils primary winding and secondary winding, respectively, the primary Winding P being connected at one end in series with the battery B and leafspring brush 35 through a terminal 36 on cap 16 and conductor 37, the latter having sufficient slack in it to accommodate the slight amount of oscillation of the top member 23 with spark advance and retard movement. Brush 35 is carried by top member 23 and extends through slot 35' in housing 25 and engages the top of a metal ring R on top of rotor 31. One end of the secondary winding S is connected through lead 38 with a leaf-spring brush 39 that extends downwardly from the lower side of the top wall of cap 16 at the center thereof to bear on the head of terminal pin 40 set in registering holes in the center of the top wall of base 25 and its oscillatable top member 23 relative to which rotor 31 rotates with the distributor shaft 32. The brush 39, as shown at 41, is electrically connected with the wire in lead 38 so that current flows through the primary winding P to ring R a predetermined interval or dwell time determined by the grounding engagement of brush 58 with the periphcry of one of the copper segments 42 carried on ring R and set in circumferentially spaced pockets in the reduced upper end portion 43 of the rotor 31, high voltage current is induced in the secondary winding S. A spark is accordingly delivered to whichever spark plug is connected wtih the secondary winding S through a copper insert 44 and spark plug lead 45 connected by a pointed screw 46 with segment 44. The screws 46 are threaded in vertical holes 6 in flange 26 through registering holes in copper segments 44 for enough to pierce wires in leads 45 entered in transverse holes 45' in flange 26. Each such circuit includes the spring-pressed contact bar 47, pin 48, cup 49, and coiled compression spring 50 in the cup 49 engaging the end of pin 40. The parts 47-50 are all assembled in the rotor. The weight 51 which has a rounded periphery in slidable engagement in bore 52 is suitably mounted on the rotor 31 as by pins 51' in' diametrically opposed relation to the contact bar 47 and serves both as a counter-weight and as a spacer for the rotor in the bore 52.

In FIG. 3 is shown a recess in one side of the top member 23 to accommodate a condenser C connected by lead 53 to an arcuate plate 54 fastened by pins 55 in a recess 56 in the periphery of the top member 23, said plate serving to back up the spring 57 urging the contact brush 58 radially inwardly into engagement with the periphery of copper segments 42 to ground the same through a segmental metal plate 59 disposed under the brush 58 and in electrical conductive relationship thereto, and also in the same relationship to a vertical metal pin 60. slidable in a vertical hole 61 in the molded plastic housing to conduct the current from ring R to ground through distributor base The pin 60 is urged upwardly by a coiled compression spring 62 disposed in the lower end of the hole 61 where a metal screw 63 serves both to retain the spring 62 in loaded condition while making contact also with the top of metal distributor base 10. The condenser C, of course, eliminates sparking at the ground connection 58 and there is accordingly no pitting of the copper segments 42 on the periphery surfaces thereof. Brush 58 is carried on top member 23 and extends through a slot 58' in the housing 25.

In operation, perfect correlation is assured by the same rotary operation at both primary and secondary levels, and, therefore, the present distributor gives quicker starting, better acceleration, smoother running, better mileage per gallon of gasoline, and various side benefits, aside .from longer life of the unit itself due to its rotary operation resulting in reduced arcing and pitting. This distributor, due to its rotary operation is far better adapted to the firing requirements of modern higher speed engines, and furthermore is better adapted to modern driving conditions where cars are driven continuously at relatively high speed for hours at a time. It should also be clear from the foregoing that I have retained the advantages of my earlier construction, which required complete replacement of an existing distributor at substantially higher cost, whereas the present construction, which should be available at lower cost, is applicable to existing distributor installations, requiring only partial replacement and making available the advantages of the rotary principle of my invention where otherwise only the make and break type distributor, with all of its shortcoming bein used- Referring lastly to FIGS. 6 and 7, a plastic printed circuit wafer 65 is illustrated as interposed between the plastic cap 16 and plastic housing 25 on top of the flange 26, and, instead of utilizing pins 46 as shown in FIG. 3 to conduct the high tension current directly from these seg ments 44 to the sparkplug leads 45 a printed circuit path 66 has terminal pins 67 corresponding to the pins 46 which enter holes 68 in the flange 26' to connect to end portions of sparkplug leads 45, which are symmetrically arranged around the distributor D as shown in FIG. 7 and extended to the sparkplugs SP with substantially the same length connections in each case regardless of the firing order for the engine indicated at E. Staples indicated at 69 having no electrical connection in the printed circuit but intended purely for locating purposes extend from water 65 and are entered in holes 70 in the flange 26'. Obviously, piston and crank-shaft geometry dictates what the firing sequence for an engine must be, and, in all present distributors the leads are extended from the distributor cap and connected in the order of firing. However, since the physical location of the leads in a rotative sequence does not match the banks of sparksplugs as to cylinder numbers, the wires extend in criss-cross relationship at the cap and sometimes are also crossed with respect to one another elsewhere in the engine compartment, and, under such circumstances, cross-firing can occur when and if stray electrical fields exist and, of course, with that arrangement the service aspect is not as good as with the present construction.

It is believed the foregoing description conveys a good understanding of the objects and advantages of my invention. The appended claims have been drawn to cover all legitimate modifications and adaptations.

I claim:

1. In a distributor comprising a stationary vertical housing of insulation material and hollow generally cylindrical form, and a rotor of insulation material of generally cylindrical form disposed vertically in said housing in concentric relationship thereto, the improvement which comprises a plurality of horizontally disposed arcuate metallic contact segments carried on the upper end of the rotor in evenly circumferentially spaced relation in and flush with the periphery thereof and interconnected electrically by a top ring as part of the primary circuit for a spark coil, a first spring-pressed metallic contact bearing downwardly on the top of said ring, a second spring-pressed metallic contact bearing radially inwardly on the periphery of said rotor to have sliding engagement with and to ground said contact segments at regular intervals for predetermined dwells, the length of each of which is determined by the circumferential dimension of each of said segments, said two contacts being electrically connected intermittantly with one another through said ring and any one of said contact segments with a ground, a central top electrical terminal for said rotor in insulated relationship to said ring and contact segments, a third spring-pressed metallic contact in insulated relationship to said housing and rotor forming part of the secondary circuit for a spark coil and bearing downwardly on said terminal, a plurality of horizontally disposed metallic contact segments carried on said housing in evenly circumferentially spaced relation in and flush with the inner periphery of said housing as another part of the secondary circuit of the spark coil, a metallic spring-pressed contact on one side of said rotor in insulated relation thereto slidably engaging the inside of said housing to engage one after another of said last mentioned contact segments in a predetermined relation to the current flow in the primary circuit, said last named contact having electrical connection with the aforesaid terminal, and means for turning the rotor relative to said housing.

2. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, wherein said housing has a top section oscillatable with respect to the top portion of the housing and carrying the two first mentioned contacts thereon for spark advance and retard.

3. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, wherein said housing has a top section oscillatable with respect to the top portion of the housing and carrying the two first mentioned contacts thereon for spark advance and retard, a cap on said housing enclosing said oscillatable top section and carrying the third spring-pressed metallic contact in insulated relation thereto bearing downwardly on said terminal, and means externally of said cap having connection through a slot in said cap with the oscillatable top section of said housing inside said cap to shift said top section to advance and retard the spark.

4. A distributor as set forth in claim 3, wherein said last mentioned means includes a cylinder in rigid relation to said cap and having a piston reciprocable therein and connected by a link to said oscillatable top section of said housing, said piston being spring-pressed in one direction to advance the spark and movable in the opposite direction to retard the spark in response to drop in pressure in an engine manifold communicating with said cylinder.

5. A distributor as set forth in claim 4, including screwthreaded adjusting means for limiting the travel of said piston in response to drop in pressure in the engine manifold.

6. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including a counterweight for said spring-pressed contact on said rotor in diametrically opposed relation thereto.

7. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including a counterweight for said spring-pressed contact on said rotor in diametrically opposed relation thereto, the weight slidably engaging the inside of said housing whereby also to serve as a spacer to support said rotor in central relation to said housing.

8. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including a contact pin slidable axially in said rotor in coaxial relation to the terminal and having means whereby it is springpressed into engagement at its one end with a radially inwardly extending portion of the metallic contact on the side of said rotor for electrical connection therewith at that end and has electrical connection at its other end with said terminal.

9. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including a contact pin slidable axially in said rotor in coaxial relation to the terminal and having means whereby it is springpressed into engagement at its one end with a radially in-. wardly extending portion of the metallic contact on the side of said rotor for electrical connection therewith at that end and has electrical connection at its other end with said terminal, there being a cup slidably mounted in the upper end of said rotor at the center thereof in which a portion of said terminal is received, said cup housing metallic spring means urging the cup into engagement with the upper end of the contact pin while caged between the bottom of said cup and said terminal.

10. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, wherein the last mentioned metallic contact segments are slidably assembled in the housing in radial holes provided therefor, the construction including pins entered in holes in said housing in transverse relation to said first mentioned radial holes through registering holes provided in said contact segments to secure the latter in assembled relation to said housing, said pins having pointed ends entering other holes provided in said housing in spaced relation to the first mentioned radial holes into which end portions of sparkplug lead wires are entered which are pierced by the pointed ends of said pins for electrically connecting the wires with said contact segments through said pins while said pins also retain said lead wires in place.

11. A distributor as set forth in claim 10, wherein said pins are threaded for threaded engagement in the holes provided therefor and threaded engagement in the registering holes in the contact segments.

12. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, wherein the housing has a substantially vertical hole provided therein,

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a metallic pin slidable in said hole, and spring means in said hole urging said pin in one direction and serving also as an electrical conductor whereby said pin and spring function together as a ground connection for the second spring-pressed metallic contact by electrical connection at one end with said contact and at the other end with a ground.

13. A distributor as set forth in claim 12, including an intermediate metallic conductor plate mounted in said housing having engagement on one side with said pin and spring assembly and on the other side with said second spring-pressed metallic contact.

14. A distributor as set forth in claim 12, including an intermediate metallic conductor plate mounted in said housing having engagement on one side with said pin and spring assembly and on the other side with said second spring-pressed metallic contact, said plate shifting relative to said pin with the top section of said housing in the oscillation thereof and being of segmental shape and of sufiicient width to maintain contact with the pin in all positions of said top section.

15. A distributor as set forth in claim 12, including a retaining screw plug in one end of said hole serving both to hold the spring in caged relationship to said pin on its one side and as an electrical contact on its other side by contact with the ground.

.16. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including, between the last mentioned metallic contact segments and the sparkplug leads, circuit means in said distributor whereby said leads, arranged in a predetermined desired order around said distributor independently of the firing order of an engine, to the sparkplugs of which said leads are connected, for electrically connecting each metallic contact segment with its associated lead regardless of its nearness or remoteness with respect to said metallic contact segment according to said firing order.

17. A distributor as set forth in claim 1, including, between the last mentioned metallic contact segments and the sparkplug leads, a Wafer of insulation material sandwiched horizontally between two parts of the distributor housing structure in the assembling thereof and having pins extending therefrom in spaced parallel relationship to one another, each arranged to enter a hole in one of the distributor parts to pierce a sparkplug lead wire, an end portion of which is entered in a hole in said housing into which the end portion of the pin extends in the assembled position of the wafer whereby to make electrical connection with and retain said lead wire, each of said pins having a separate conductor extending therefrom in said wafer in insulated relation to other conductors for electrical connection with one of said last mentioned metallic contact segments regardless of its nearness or remoteness with respect to said sparkplug lead Wire.

18. A distributor as set forth in claim 17, including other means on said wafer and said distributor parts independent of said pins for locating said wafer ring in proper relationship to said distributor parts and thus assure correct connection of said pins with the sparkplug lead wires.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,187,070 1/ 1940 Arthur 200-31 2,773,140 12/ 1956 Guernsey et al. 200-24 2,935,578 5/ 1960 Mekelburg 200-25 3,139,081 6/1964 Tyzack 123-148 3,206,565 9/1965 Lingenfelter 200-28 3,435,161 3/1969 Webster 200-26 VOLODYMYR Y. MAYEWSKY, Primary Examiner U.S. Cl. X.R. 

